for Sydna
Winds herd grasses, blades
hissing back harassment,
harassment with their stem
tongues. Tungsten comes from
Swedish for heavy stone and
the element known as wolfram
when miners first noticed
on the surface of tin melt
a foam that devoured yield.
My daughter wears a ring
of tungsten carbide, bright
but brittle. Hear me:
When she posts photos from
DC protests, I’m an ocean
of mothers. The sky burns
with pride and stings of
menace. There’s more
risk in ordinary language
than a Cold War of
kinetic bombardment
could avert. Every
incandescence illuminates
a barricade, etches each
her monument, a moment
in stone. Heavens, deliver
to these devouts sureties
of unsheathed light. See,
I found a recipe
for freedom. It calls
for a pinch of slag
to bolster the tongue,
an acidic dash, dredged
soot, heaps of frothing
waves, more wolf.
